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Saturday, 28 September 2013

An article celebrating Dr Martin Luther King's famous speech, "I HAVE A DREAM" by Madalyn Morgan

St Peter’s Review – Autumn 2013 Edition – Page 8

www.stpeters-streatham.org

FIFTY
YEARS AGO MARTIN LUTHER KING JR. SAID

“I HAVE A DREAM”

by

Madalyn
Morgan

Dr Martin Luther King Jr. was a Baptist minister, a
social activist, and the leader of the Civil Rights Movement in the United
States of America from the mid-1950s until his death in 1968.For tens of millions of African Americans he was
the leader of their crusade for racial equality.His was the educated voice needed to end discrimination
and humiliation, and bring black Americans human dignity.

The first I knew of the Civil Rights Movement was
when I was a schoolgirl living in a small rural town in England.I used to listen to the protest songs of Bob
Dylan and Joan Baez.So it is a great
privilege to research and write about the icon of that movement, Dr Martin
Luther King Jr. and some of those who risked everything to fight for change and
freedom.

Martin
Luther King’s dream was for racial equality

In the spring of 1963, Martin Luther King Jr. led a nonviolent
demonstration in Birmingham, Alabama.Thousands
of African American families, marching peacefully, were met with violence when police
set dogs on them; turned fire hoses on the children, and kicked young black men
to the ground. By the end of the march,
Martin Luther King and many of his supporters were in jail.After Birmingham, Dr King and his supporters organised
a bigger, but still peaceful, demonstration.On August 28, 1963, the historic March on Washington drew more than 200,000
black and white people to the Lincoln Memorial.

St Peter’s Review – Autumn 2013 Edition – Page 9

“We are determined to
be free in 63”

Martin
Luther King Jr. overwhelmed by the crowds in Washington

American gospel singer, Mahalia Jackson, known as The
Queen of Gospel shouted, “Tell them about the dream, Martin, tell them about
the dream, doctor.” In the middle of his
speech, Martin Luther King Jr. turned to Mahalia Jackson and stopped
speaking.A second later, he began the
speech again with those immortal and heartfelt words, “I have a dream.”

Joan Baez, the American folk singer and
activist, led the crowds in several verses of “We Shall Overcome” and “Oh
Freedom.” Bob Dylan sang “When the
Ship Comes In.” Peter, Paul and Mary, “If I Had a Hammer” and Bob Dylan's “Blowin’ in the Wind” - a political
song adressing the subjects of murder and civil rights. [A song that I play today, on my radio show.]

A
man who found his mission and became something else

Martin Luther King grew up in Atlanta Georgia.He was born on January 15th, 1929
to Michael King Sr. and Alberta Williams King.He was Christened, Michael King Jr. and had an older sister, Willie
Christine, and a younger brother, Alfred Daniel Williams King. Michael Sr. adopted the name Martin Luther
King, in honour of the German Protestant religious leader Martin Luther. Some years later, Michael Jr. adopted the name
for himself.

Martin’s childhood was not an easy one.As well as the difficulties that all black people experienced in the 1940s and 50s, his beloved grandmother died.Unable to cope with the loss, the grieving twelve year old tried to commit suicide (it is alleged) when he jumped out of an upstairs window. He became precocious.He didn’t attend ninth, or eleventh grade, but entered the Morehouse College in Atlanta when he was fifteen.He was a good looking boy and popular with his fellow students – especially the female ones.

For the first couple of years Martin questioned
religion, saying he wouldn’t enter the ministry.However, after taking Bible classes, his
faith was renewed.He earned a sociology
degree from Morehouse and went on to study at Crozer Theological Seminary, in
Chester Pennsylvania.He excelled in all
of his studies, was valedictorian of his class in 1951, elected student body
president, and given a fellowship for graduate study.

In his final year, Martin’s mentor was
theologian Reinhold Niebuhr, who became the most important influence in his intellectual
and spiritual development. Martin was
offered places at Yale, Edinburgh in Scotland, and Boston University.He chose Boston.It was while he was studying that he met, Coretta
Scott, an aspiring singer and musician at the New England Conservatory School
in Boston.

Married in June 1953 Martin and Coretta had four
children, Yolanda, Martin Luther King III, Dexter Scott and Bernice.In 1954, while working on his dissertation, Martin became
pastor of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church of Montgomery. In 1955, after completing his Ph.D. he
was awarded his degree.He was
twenty-five. Montgomery
City Bus Boycott

In March of that year, Claudette Colvin, a 15-year-old
girl, sitting in the coloured section of a Montgomery City bus, was told to
give up her seat to a white man.Claudette
refused and was arrested.Claudette was pregnant.The incident was considered by the local
NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People). They thought
that it would help their case against Montgomery City's Segregated Bus Policy.However, the civil rights leaders were
concerned that because Claudette Colvin was pregnant at fifteen, it would be a scandal
for the religious black community and make their case less credible to the whites.

Their chance came in December of that year when 42-year-old
Rosa Parks, on her way home from work, sat in the first row of the “coloured”
section of the Cleveland Avenue bus.When
the bus was full, several white men were standing.The black passengers were ordered to give up
their seats to the white passengers.Three
African Americans reluctantly did as they were told, but Rosa refused and was arrested
for violating the Montgomery City Code.At her trial she was found guilty and ordered to pay $10 and $4 court
costs.

On the night Rosa Parks was arrested there was a
meeting between the head of the local NAACP, Martin Luther King Jr. and half a
dozen local civil rights leaders.The
outcome was a citywide bus boycott.For 382
days, Montgomery’s African American community walked, putting up with harassment,
intimidation and violence.King's home, and
the home of the NAACP leader, was vandalised, but it did not stop them.The black community took legal action against
the city regulation arguing that it was unconstitutional based on the Supreme
Court's “separate is never equal.” (A
phrase derived from the 1890 Louisiana law “equal but separate”).Eventually, after being defeated in several
courts and suffering huge financial losses, the city of Montgomery lifted the
rule on segregation on public transport.

St Peter’s Review – Autumn 2013 Edition – Page 10

Nobel
Peace Prize for 1964

In 1865, the House of Representatives passed the
13th Amendment to the Constitution, abolishing slavery in America.The amendment read, “Neither slavery nor
involuntary servitude shall exist within the United States, or any place
subject to their jurisdiction.”(Slavery
did still exist, but that’s another story.)In 1964, the American people began to question almost 100 years of
second-class treatment of African-American citizens.This resulted in the passage of the Civil
Rights Act of 1964 authorising the federal government to enforce desegregation
of public accommodations and outlawing discrimination in publicly owned
facilities.It also led to Martin Luther
King receiving the Nobel Peace Prize.

Martin
Luther King Jr’s rise to prominence

On March 7, 1965, Dr King and his Southern Christian
Leadership Conference (SCLC) began a drive to win voting rights for African
Americans.Civil Rights activists marched
peacefully from Selma to Alabama's capital Montgomery, where state troopers
with nightsticks and tear gas tried to stop them crossing the Edmond Pettus
Bridge.Dr King was not on the march,
but the television cameras were – and the American people watched as nonviolent
demonstrators were brutally beaten.Seventeen
people were hospitalised that day.A day
known ever since as, “Bloody Sunday.”A restraining
order stopped a second march, but a third took place with Dr King marching on
the front line.On March 16th,
1965, a different tack was taken.Two
thousand five hundred marchers, black and white, set out again to cross the
Pettus Bridge. Confronted by barricades
and state troopers, Dr King knelt in prayer.His followers knelt beside him.When
they had finished praying they stood up and walked back.That was a significant day for African
Americans.Less than five months later, President
Lyndon Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

On 6 August 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed
the Voting Rights Act, calling the day ‘‘A triumph for freedom as huge as any
victory that has ever been won on any battleﬁeld.”And after speaking about slavery he said, “Today
we strike away those shackles and ancient bonds.”

President Lyndon B. Johnson signing the
Voting Rights Act with Dr King and family looking on.

From 1965 to 1967, Dr King’s Civil Rights Movement spread
to other major American cities.However,
his non-violent approach and appeal to white middle-class citizens alienated many
black militants who considered his methods passive, weak, and too late.To address this criticism, Dr King linked discrimination
with poverty.He formed a multiracial
coalition to address the economic and unemployment problems of all
disadvantaged people.Later he extended his
civil rights efforts to the Vietnam War, saying America's involvement was
discriminatory to the poor.

If
we shoot men of peace, we are left with men of violence

Martin Luther King said, “If a man
doesn’t find something he’d give his life for, he ain’t fit to live.”He did find something, and he did give his
life for it.

“Like anybody,” he said, “I would like
to live a long life.Longevity has its
place.But I'm not concerned about that
now.I just want to do God's will.And he's allowed me to go up to the
mountain.And I've looked over.And I've seen the Promised Land.I may not get there with you.But I want you to know tonight that we, as a
people, will get to the Promised Land!”Dr
Martin Luther King Jr. made that speech on April 3, 1968.The following day he was shot and killed on the
balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee.

At the root of Dr King’s civil rights
conviction was his faith in the basic goodness of man, and the great potential
of American democracy. “Life, liberty,
and the pursuit of happiness” for all men.

“Let freedom ring from every city and
every hamlet, from every state, and we will speed up that day when all of God's
children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and
Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro
spiritual, ‘Free at last, Free at last, Great God a-mighty, We are free at
last.”

St Peter’s Review – Autumn 2013 Edition – Page 11

The Martin
Luther King Jr. memorial in West Potomac Park Washington DC stands near the
Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial, and on a sightline linking the Lincoln
Memorial to the northwest and the Jefferson Memorial to the southeast.

Information and quotes sourced from Martin Luther
King Jr’s biography, The New York Times, and the written reports of several
Civil Rights witnesses.Photographs: OPA
Online Public Access, Stock photographs, Free Liberal and Google Free
photographs.

Welcome to my non-fiction writing blog, or, Articles Blog.

As usual I rushed into blogging without thinking and called this blog my 'Writing Blog.' I should have called it my 'Articles' or 'Non-fiction Blog,' because that's what it is. My other blog is called a, Fiction Blog. Thank you for logging on, Maddie x

About Me

Madalyn
Morgan has been an actress for over thirty years, performing on television, in repertory theatre and
in London's West End. She is a radio journalist, and has written many articles for
newspapers and magazines.

After living in London for 35 years, Madalyn sold up and moved to the country, swapping two window boxes and a mortgage, for a house with a garden and the freedom to write. Her fourth novel, The 9:45 To Bletchley will be available from Amazon - Kindle and paperback - as well as several independent bookshops from June 1, 2016.

Already published on Amazon are the first three novels in the Dudley Sisters Saga, Foxden Acres, Applause, and China Blue - the loves and lives of Bess, Margot and Claire Dudley, during World War Two.

Madalyn is currently writing the fifth and final novel about the Dudley sisters. The Foxden Hotel begins ten years after Foxden Acres on the eve of 1949 and will be published in June 2017. The next phase in Madalyn's writing career will kick off with a modern love story - working title, Forty into Twenty-Eight Won't Go!